May 18, 2006

The Aragorn Defense

OK, the list of things that sets me off about Enron and Ken Lay just grew longer today.

The list starts with Enron getting $1.1 billion dollars in tax payer funded loans from the executive branch under Bill Clinton, then there's Enron being implicated by Human Rights Watch in the beatings of villagers in Dabhol, India in 1997, and Ken Lay donating obscene amounts of money to the Bush campaign in 2000 then being named to GW's transitional team, and then there's Ken Lay sitting on the Board of Trustees for the Heinz Center, an environmental group founded by Teresa Heinz, for a decade that ended a few months before John Kerry announced his intentions to run for President and 2 years AFTER the Enron scandal broke, and you can't forget fraud on the scale of fabricating an elaborate trading floor in their headquarters in Houston to fool stock analysts, or crushing any hope of stock market stability in the months following September 11th by restating their earnings back to 1997 and declaring bankruptcy. My eye is twitching just thinking back on all of that stuff.

Today, I added this to the list: The Lay/Skilling defense team was brazen enough to steal part of Aragorn's speech from the final battle scene of "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," for their closing arguments. Here is the offending line from defense team member Mike Ramsey:

"There may be a court in America that bends to political pressure but it's not this court! There may come a day when an American jury yields to a media mob, but it's not this day!", Ramsey stated loudly and emphatically.

Compare that to what Aragorn said to his men before the final battle for Middle Earth when his men were outnumbered by the thousands and awaiting certain death:

A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day!

A rousing speech like that has to come from a battle-hardened, swarthy, man with the wind blowing through his hair and not a manicured, corporate lawyer geek like Mike Ramsey. Ramsey would be lucky to pull off a few lines from a minor Hobbit character or maybe an orc, but Aragorn, the King of Men? No way. Guilty on all counts.